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In all the recent debate on the merits of the digital-first strategy for publishers (neatly encapsulated today by Mathew Ingram), there is one strand of discussion that never quite comes to the foreground. Though the phrase digital first is often contrasted with digital only, for many—mostly the critics, but perhaps some of the advocates as well—the implicit message is the same: “Digital rocks! Print sucks!”

To my mind, that’s not what digital first means. The point of the phrase is not about which medium is better. It’s about which medium people use. And that medium is sometimes print, sometimes web, sometimes social, sometimes mobile, sometimes video, sometimes audio. Digital-first is about distributing content through all those media in the most efficient way possible. Digital is first, but not necessarily foremost.

The idea, as I see it, is not to privilege digital media over other forms, but to use a digital workflow to move seamlessly and efficiently from one format to another. That, of course is easier said than done. Alan Mutter puts it plainly:

“Publishers today are struggling to pivot to a new business model that they call ‘digital first’—whatever that means—while managing through the seemingly relentless decline of their existing one. Mastering either of those tasks individually would be daunting. The challenge of doing both at the same time is nothing less than epic.”

As Mutter points out, one reason that newspapers have failed so miserably at the digital transition is that they “unimaginatively tried to export their formerly successful print business model to the digital realm. ” That is, they employed a print-first strategy. And the print model is simply too rigid and too ponderous to be the starting point in modern publishing.

This, I take it, is what Digital First Media CEO John Paton, muchcriticized of late, is getting at when he said that his “digital first strategy is centered on the cost-effective creation of content and sales and not the legacy modes of production.”

The ultimate goal of digital first should not be to substitute one medium for another, but to achieve medium independence. Technology is shifting ground daily, and the way people interact is changing with it. As publishers, if we want to interact with them, we have to be able to deliver our content when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it. Such dexterity is only possible by going digital first.

Last month, I wrote about how Atlantic Media’s new online publication, Quartz, offers business-to-business publishers a new advertising model to consider. Since then I’ve been thinking a lot about another new model Quartz embodies, this time involving its content. Instead of the traditional editorial beats, its coverage reflects what it calls obsessions.

Though this looks at first like a slightly precious and possibly meaningless distinction, on closer inspection, it isn’t. In fact, for the B2B world in particular, it is a crucial concept.

The idea is best understood by reading Quartz news editor Gideon Lichfield’s slightly nerdy but persuasive rationale for abandoning the beat. As he explains, “Today almost every news outlet is organized around fixed beats: ‘financial markets,’ ‘real estate,’ ‘technology’, and so on.”

For Lichfield, the fatal flaw of the beat is that it is driven by the print model:

“Yet the beats aren’t so much an objective taxonomy as a convenient management tool, devised for an old technology. When news came in a sheaf of pages it made sense to divide them into sections—domestic, foreign, business, and so on—with an editor and a team of writers for each one, and make each writer responsible for a slice of that section: a beat.”

Lichfield’s post has provoked a range of reactions. C.W. Anderson worries that giving up on beats means abandoning the “monitorial” role of the press. Others, like Joshua Benton and Paul Raeburn, don’t think the distinction between beats and obsessions is very clear.

Benton does, however, underscore a key aspect of the concept: flexibility. “What I do like about the obsessions model,” he writes, “is that obsessions are destined to be temporary and responsive to reality.” This is clearly central to Lichfield. He repeatedly refers to beats as “fixed,” and contrasts them with his definition of obsessions as an “ever-evolving collection of phenomena.”

The other key concept Lichfield addresses is that of crossing traditional boundaries. Covering such phenomena through a traditional beat structure, he writes, “is difficult: they often cut across beat boundaries, taking in politics, economics, technology, and other issues. Our journalists have to be, to some extent, all-rounders, who aren’t afraid to get outside their usual expertise and track the topic they’re following wherever it leads.”

Lichfield adds that online, “when there are no pages and sections to constrain you, you are free to reframe your description of reality.” I would go a bit farther. That act of reframing is not simply an option, but an obligation, a key to survival.

The arbitrary distinctions and categories that characterize traditional B2B publishing—think yearly editorial calendars, ad/edit ratios, “controlled circulation”—make such reframing impossible. The niche still matters, but it is in constant flux, and to pursue it, you have to change with it.

In almost every way, the B2B print model is poorly suited to this pursuit. It commits publishers to a relatively fixed way of presenting information on a rigid production-driven schedule to an arbitrarily defined audience that may or may not want that information.

Thinking about B2B media from this perspective has been an interesting exercise. I’ve drawn, so far, three conclusions.

First, the way publishers cover information should not be driven by the needs of the print model. The insight is easy; acting on it, alas, is hard. Unlike the online-only Quartz, most B2B publishers want to protect substantial, if steadily declining, print revenues. One way or another, though, they will have to make the digital-first transition if they want to survive.

Second, publishers have to rethink their idea of their audience. It’s not 20,000 subscribers assigned to one of six demographic categories (and it never was). It is now a constantly shifting group of people that changes with every new article and every new keyword. You can’t write to them all (and you never could). So who are you trying to reach, and why?

Third, to succeed as an online publisher, you have to know when and how to change. When you substitute an evolving obsession for a fixed beat, you have to dig deeper and harder for things to write about. And when you write for an ever-changing group of readers, you have to be constantly assessing who they are.

The way you do it is through data. Most B2B publishers talk a lot about data, but mostly to ask, “Gee, how can we sell our data to companies and make a lot of money?” But the real value isn’t in the data set itself, but in how that data can help publishers strengthen their relationships with their audiences. If you aren’t actively mining and analyzing the data you have on your readers and their obsessions, you won’t keep up with them.

These are not particularly new or original observations. But they underscore for me something less obvious: to survive online, you have to abandon not just the mechanisms of print, but the very thought processes.

That’s no surprise. But what interests me is the four-part test they use to assess companies. Could it be adapted to individuals as a way of testing their own digital chops, I wonder?

The authors’ four criteria for highly digital companies are pretty straightforward:

The company generates a high percentage of revenues digitally.

Its leadership has deep digital experience.

It does business enabled by digital channels.

It is seen as transformational within its industry.

I’m not sure Rayport and Rickards sufficiently explain these criteria, but it doesn’t matter. My concern here is with adapting these four tests to individuals—and particularly to editors and journalists.

So let’s say, then, that you can consider yourself highly digital if you meet the following versions of their four characteristics:

Most of the work you do appears in digital form either first or exclusively. Most of what you earn you only earn because your copy appeared online.

You generate your work on your own, with little need for assistance, using a variety of digital tools. You manage your CMS yourself, you are equally comfortable tweeting and posting on Facebook, you even adjust code occasionally.

Your work is uniquely digital in nature. In other words, you are not simply producing second-stage shovelware, but genuinely digital content, shaped to take full advantage of its digital medium.

The people you work with look to you as a model of digital competence. Others come to you not just for help using WordPress or sizing an image, but also for advice on their new-media careers.

You may be wondering, “Is all this necessary? Why do I need to determine how digital I am?”

The answer, for me, is similar to what Schaefer says about companies: “social media success is not going to be a function of marketing vision or budget. It’s going to rely on radical organizational transformation.”

Likewise, for traditional journalists, the only way to ensure a healthy career in the new-media era is to undergo a radical professional transformation. My proposed test doubtless needs work—please pitch in with suggestions or improvements in the comments below or elsewhere—but its intent is sound.

Are you highly digital? If you’re not certain of the answer, maybe it’s time to find out.

If nothing else, self-publishing is a learning experience. You learn not just about the process, but yourself. It’s not for everyone, certainly, but don’t count yourself out as a self-publisher until you give it some serious thought. Thanks to e-book and print-on-demand technology, the risks are low and the potential for rewards—though not perhaps of the kind you’d expect—high.

Now that I’ve mostly finished my first self-published book, the New-Media Survival Guide (only the print edition remains to be done), I’ve had time to identify a few initial lessons from the experience. Some of what I learned I knew already, some surprised me. I’ll have more to share later, but here are my first 5 lessons.

1. Don’t count on making money. As Seth Godin says of non-fiction book publishing, it’s an organized hobby, not a business: “The return on equity and return on time for authors and for publishers is horrendous. If you’re doing it for the money, you’re going to be disappointed.”

I knew this already, in the most casual way, and money was the least of my motives in making the effort. But I can see now that if you want a direct monetary return, your chances of making anything substantial are slim.

Although that conclusion might at first glance seem discouraging, it’s in fact quite liberating. Once you accept that you won’t make much money, you’re free to enjoy all the other rewards of self-publishing—the satisfaction of building something substantial of your own, the technical knowledge you gain, the benefit to your brand, the value you share with your readers, and much more. For me the process was great fun, and well worth the time and effort.

So, you might ask, if I’m not in it for the money, why, instead of giving it away, am I selling it (for the bargain price, I might add, of $2.99)?

Well, first, for the experience. I can’t really explore all the dimensions of self-publishing without selling the book. Second, it somehow feels more genuine to charge for it. If you pay a small but measurable amount for my book, it makes for a more meaningful exchange. Giving it away just wouldn’t feel the same.

2. Self-publishing is both easier and harder than it looks. I’d be the first person to suggest that if you have the slightest interest in self-publishing, you should do it. It’s really not that hard. Armed with, say, Carla King’s excellentthreearticles on the topic in MediaShift, a helpful primer like Mark Coker’s Smashwords Style Guide, and just a dash of patience, even a motivated technophobe can overcome the modest hurdles involved.

On the other hand, once you get ambitious and want to go beyond the barest, simplest text, self-publishing gets tricky. Unless you’re an experienced designer, you’ll quickly realize you need help to achieve the look and reading experience you’re after.

As a tech geek and small-scale hacker, I’ve enjoyed the challenges, but it didn’t take me long to hit the limits of what I could readily do. You will most likely get acceptable results on your own, but if you want to surpass that level of quality, you’ll need a professional.

3. Multiple sales and distribution channels might be overkill. I’ve aimed to make my book available via as many outlets and in as many formats as possible, within reason. You can buy it on Smashwords in a variety of formats, on Amazon in Kindle format and, soon, print, and on Apple’s bookstore. Again, using all three venues was good experience, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it for most people.

To supply all these channels and formats, I ended up using three different word processors (I’ll explain why in another post), making sure I kept my three versions all in sync as I continued to make changes to the text. After submitting the book, I had to make changes or corrections via three different web sites. And, of course, my potential readers have to decide which of three venues to purchase it from.

If you were to ask me right now, I’d probably advise you to choose between Smashwords and Amazon for your own self-publishing venture. What you lose in potential sales and exposure—probably not much—you’ll gain back many times over in simplicity.

4. Print still has its allure. Now to contradict myself. Though it will complicate rather than simplify your experience, print may be worth the inevitable frustrations. As I wrote last week, I wouldn’t be surprised if self-publishing leads to a modest revival in print. I’m not going to do a Jonathan Franzen here, mind you, but bear with me: print is and forever will be very, very cool. You’d be cheating yourself and perhaps even a few of your readers if you don’t offer your book on paper.

As Carla King and others have suggested, you can avoid some of the complication by starting with print rather than, like me, ending with it. Through CreateSpace, you can simply pay $69 to have a Kindle version produced from your finished print file.

5. Focus on shipping. If you decide to try self-publishing, don’t dawdle the way I did. I spent five or six months coming up with a variety of drafts and approaches, all of them worthy and all of them fatally incomplete. It wasn’t until I made a fairly detailed writing and publishing schedule and committed myself to it that I was able to produce the book. Even then, I ran about a month late.

Your schedule should be realistic but also fairly tight. If you don’t pursue a project like this with some sense of urgency, you’re not likely to finish it. And if it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t count.

Intrigued? Then why not try it? And if you’re not sure, or you have a different take on this than I do, share your thoughts and questions in the comments. I have, I admit, become a self-publishing enthusiast. Perhaps someone should talk me out of it….

Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Julie Bosman described how book publishers have begun putting extra effort into making their print products more physically and esthetically engaging. Their rationale, says Bosman, is that if “e-books are about ease and expedience,” then print books should “be about physical beauty and the pleasures of owning.” The strategy, they hope, will “increase the value of print books and build a healthy, diverse marketplace that includes brick-and-mortar bookstores and is not dominated by Amazon and e-books.”

As a book collector, I’m pleased that books will be more beautiful. As a lover of bookstores, I’m happy for anything that might help preserve them. But as a reader and writer, I’m quite indifferent.

The problem with the strategy is that it won’t, as hoped, “cut into e-book sales” in a significant way. Most readers aren’t antiquarians and don’t value the physical esthetics of the container. They just want the content.

In the same way, unlike book designers, most writers don’t care in a meaningful way about the physical presence of a book. They just want to tell a story, or convey information, or to create works of art out of their words. The physical format is not essential.

There are a few books for which the physical medium of print matters in an essential way. House of Leaves, for instance, just wouldn’t be so mind-blowing in a leafless e-book. And is there any effective e-equivalent of a pop-up book? Moreover, could anyone do this with an e-book?

But these instances and their like are minor eddies of activity that briefly pull print defenders upstream before they are hurtled back down, inevitably, towards the fatal digital waterfall.

The effect is simply amplified when it comes to magazines (and turned up to 11 for newspapers). The physical aspects of magazines can be nice indeed, but they are rarely treasured objects. Inveterate collector though I am, I have gradually whittled down even my set of classic Wired issues from several shelves to one shelf—and only the Neal Stephenson issue is safe.

I’m all for more beautiful books, but let’s be realistic. Like taxidermy, printing beautiful books may preserve glorious specimens, but it does nothing to save the species.